Tag: Travelogue

Amongst the multitude of wonderful avian wildlife, one little character stands out and that is the Red Fody. A beautiful bright red bird that is about the same size as any British Finch.

The first morning we woke up to a tap tapping sound at the window and were slightly startled! So gingerly I walked to the window, opened the curtains to see this beautiful bright red bird flying against the window. He could perhaps see his reflection in the glass or maybe had found a source of insects climbing across the window.

The people here live in coexistence with nature,they don’t fend it off or even kill it like the original inhabitants of Mauritius would have done (Dodo for example). This means you share your dining experience with the Minah Birds who are quite vocal and may even imitate you which is very funny.

Funny that every morning the Fody wakes me up in time for breakfast. I could almost set my watch by the little guy.

As the gallery grows, I thought I should pick out some of my favourite shots. Well the ones that I really enjoyed taking, as I love the places that I visited at the time. We have a mixture here that spans all the way from Farnborough to the Cinquentenaire in Brussels and a little bit of Capri, Italy.

I thought I’d re-share this shot for two reasons, one I really love this location and secondly I was mortfied to hear recently that a number of these famous trees have had to be cut down. The National Trust decided that around a dozen (maybe more) of the trees were unsafe and they had no option other than to chop them down. Continue reading “Beech Avenue, Kingston Lacey”→

Apologies for the watermark but I have just grabbed this shot off my other site, as I was sharing it with a friend of mine. I decided to post it here because I am currently having travel withdrawal symptoms!!!

We discovered a fantastic new bakery company in Dorset this weekend, called Long Crichel Bakery in the village of the same name. My Dad (pictured above) had heard of their fine almond croissants. So we ordered some and whilst they weren’t cheap, they were damn well worth it, as they were delicious! Feast your eyes on the photo above and head for Dorset, you may get totally lost trying to find it, so you will be peckish by the time you do!

It looks like some of my posts have gone into a black hole today, as only their titles show. Sorry about this!

The man thing today is that I have found out that the Red Arrows have been banned from the 2012 Olympics which is both absurd and sad. Apparently they are deemed as being “too British”.

You can sign a petition on the 10 Downing street website to show your solidarity over this one. I have signed it.

In other news – New Bakery Discovered – If you can find Long Crichel in Dorset, good luck and reward yourself with one of their almond croissants! You will not regret it and your doctor will forgive you if you buy him/her one too!

Our first overseas trip this year will be to Brussels and this has already been booked. I am looking forward to the trip as we shall be travelling by Eurostar from the newly revamped St Pancras Station in London directly to Brussels. I have not yet been on Eurostar nor through the Channel Tunnel, so it will be a little bit of an adventure for me (my Wife has already done it though for work). Once we are there we shall be staying fairly central and exploring every nook and cranny of the city armed with my Nikon D200 and the usual bag full of lenses as an accompaniment.

I am looking for a variety of pictures to sell through Alamy (and my own library which is being built up more this year) plus I am also planning on producing an article and a raft of blog entries to boot. Some of the shots I have in mind are fairly standard but I am also looking for abstract moody shots too which will include people to portray a story of some kind.

Brussels is the first of many such trips this year and beyond. I shan’t reveal much more at this stage but will tell you more once a few more trips have been booked.

In the meantime if you know Brussels well and would like to recommend any locations for me to visit whilst there, please post a comment.